BlockMint Review – Legit Crypto IRAs?

• Name: BlockMint
• Website: blockmint.com
• Service: Cryptocurrency IRA provider

What Is BlockMint?

BlockMint is a cryptocurrency IRA provider that gives people the opportunity to invest in cryptocurrencies for their retirement and grow their funds tax-deferred (the main benefit of an IRA). They don't have many crypto investment options, but do offer the chance to buy into a handful of the most popular cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and more.

The process of getting started, which I'll go into more detail on later, is simple. You can simply rollover funds from an existing retirement account to BlockMint tax-free and then invest - a minimum of $10,000 is required for your initial investment.

Diversifying your retirement portfolio by investing in things like precious metals and cryptocurrencies could be a smart move. While the crypto market is still incredibly volatile a price predictions by analysts are all over the place, this market holds a heck of a lot of potential and investing in some of the bigger cryptocurrencies at least mitigates risk to some extent. This is why the opportunity to hop on the crypto bandwagon has been teased so much lately, such as in the "Crypto 66" teaser and that for Jeff Brown's Blockchain stock picks.

BlockMint makes the entire process of investing in this sector simple, however the fees they charge make us here at Green Bull Research hesitant to recommend actually using them.

Company Info:

Their address is listed at:

1990 S. Bundy Dr., Suite 600, Los Angeles, CA 90025

... and phone number is...

• 1-800-844-6468, which seems to be the only way to contact them - couldn't even find an email address listed on the website.

I thought I recognized the address listed before, and the reason is because the BlockMint company spun off of Lear Capital (I believe in 2020), which is a full-service precious metals dealer that has been around since 1997 and has went through some rough times - lawsuits and lots of complaints. 

However, don't let the parent company's somewhat bad reputation spoil your opinion of BlockMint. Let's take an indifferent look at what this company has to offer and whether or not it'd be worth using as a means of investment to get into tax-deferred crypto retirement investments.

The good news is that Lear Capital specializes in precious metals IRAs, so they have plenty of experience with IRS-approved IRA accounts and know how to handle retirement investments.

The People Behind It:

On the website they don't tell us much about the company. There are no names provided for the founders or the people running the show. However, since they do tell us the company was spun off of Lear Capital, it might be okay to assume the same founder and CEO.

Over at Lear Capital Kevin Demerit is the Founder and Chairman. He's an investment analyst who has appeared frequently on talk radio over the years, boasting of having had over 1,000 interviews total, and has written a somewhat successful book help people understand how the economy works, titled The Bulls, The Bears and The Bust. As you can imagine, Demerit is very bullish on alternative investments such as precious metals and cryptocurrencies. And the CEO is John Ohanesian, whom has a strong business management background, most notably having been the President and CEO of the hair restoration company Bosely - seems the management is strong here.

Hold off on this for now because there are still some very important things I need to go over, but when the time comes and if you want to open a cryptocurrency Self-Directed IRA account through BlockMint then the first step would be to fill out the online application. After this an account representative will be in contact with you. Here you'll be able to ask any questions and move on to the next step, which is funding your account.

Funding your account can be done tax-free if you have an existing retirement account that you'd like to transfer your funds from. Funds from IRAs (includes IRAs, Roth IRAs, SEP IRAs, and Simple IRAs) can be brought over tax-free, and funds can also be rolled over from most 401(k)s, 403(b)s,457(b)s Thrift Savings Plans, and TIAA CREF plans.

If you're not sure if your current retirement account is eligible for a tax-free rollover you can always contact the specialists at BlockMint.

It's also important to note that funds must come from an existing retirement account. You will not be able to invest cryptocurrencies you already own in this account or deposit money from your bank account to make your initial purchase.

Another requirement is that there is a minimum investment of $10k needed.

When it comes to investing in cryptocurrencies, you have to be careful how you go about doing so. With digital currencies like this the last thing you want is for some hacker to get into your digital wallet and steal your funds.

If you are looking to invest in crypto long-term and don't need the liquidity that is needed for daytraders, then the safest bet is to go with a cold-storage option, which is when your cryptocurrency is stored offline in some sort of hardware wallet.

*Well, actually the cryptocurrency is never stored offline and is always in the blockchain, but the private keys that provide access to your digital wallet will be stored offline.

The good news is that BlockMint knows what they are doing in this regard and all IRA investments are stored in two separate cold storage vaults - safe from hacking.

BlockMint doesn't actually handle your crypto investments themselves. Instead, they simply facilitate the transaction with the IRA custodian Equity Trust which handles the cold storage and everything. 

As stated in the Transaction Agreement:

BMI facilitates the purchase or sale of Digital Currency. BMI does not make a market in any of the Digital Currencies it sells or hold digital keys for Customers.

Equity Trust is a regulated South Dakota Trust company that is audited by 3rd parties to ensure account protection. They've been around since 1974 and have been a self-directed IRA custodian since 1983. Furthermore, they are also the custodian of other popular cryptocurrency IRA provides on the market, such as BitIRA for example.

Investing in cryptocurrencies seems to be either loved or hated. Many people, such as well-known investors like Warren Buffet, see Bitcoin and other cryptos as worthless with no real value, while others see real-use cases and big future potential.

Big Profits

While one of the downsides to investing in such is the extreme market volatility, the major upside here is the potential to make big profits, with some predictions that Bitcoin will hit $398k by 2030. Not only that, but portfolio diversification is key and alternative investments such as cryptocurrencies can be good choices during market downturns.

Lower Taxes

The lure of this type of investment vehicle is that funds grow tax-free, and will either be taxed upon distribution (Traditional IRA) or contribution (Roth IRA).

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are taxed as property, which is the way the IRS sees them. This has been the way it's been since 2014 and what this means is that cryptocurrencies held in IRAs are taxed the same way as stocks and bonds.

Okay, so let's do a quick recap here. BlockMint is a cryptocurrency IRA provider. What they do, in a nutshell, is facilitate the IRA account setup, the rollover of funds from an existing retirement account over to the new cryptocurrency IRA account, and provide an account portal so that clients can easily access and view their funds. I mentioned that they don't actually store your crypto funds themselves, and instead use a 3rd party (Equity Trust), but this shouldn't devalue the service being provided at all. This is how most cryptocurrency IRA providers operate at the moment.

The service provided by BlockMint seems to be good quality from what I have found and the company is definitely not a scam.

However, the fees are just too darn high. If you just take the transaction fees (purchase fees of 15% + 2.5% and the 1% selling fee), this means your crypto investment will have to rise 18.5% just for you to breakeven!

Sure, with cryptocurrencies there is still plenty of profit opportunity even with big fees like this, but still... this is just too much for us to recommend.

Other (Better) Options

If you have to pay fees as high as 18.5% is opening a cryptocurrency IRA even worth it?

The point of opening such an account in the first place is to save on taxes. But fees are fees. It doesn't matter whether or not your money is going to the IRS or to BlockMint... either way you aren't getting to keep those fees.

Just think about it. If you were to simply invest your money in cryptocurrency by yourself, such as by buying it through an exchange like Coinbase, Binance, Bittrex, etc., and if you were to then hold onto it for a year the profits would qualify as Long-Term capital gains and the taxes would be much less. Of course when you do cash out you'd be taxed on the profits, which we hope would be exponentially higher than your initial investment... but it's still worth thinking about.

That said, if you are certain a crypocurrency IRA is what you want to get involved with then there are other options available, places like BitcoinIRA being one of the biggest providers of such out there - we'd recommend taking a look at this place.

In the end it's your decision what you do. As always, do your own due-diligence and decide for yourself.

Let us know what you think of it all in the comment section below. What do you think of BlockMint? Are they worth using?